book of genesis explain
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Book of Genesis
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The Book of Genesis (from the Latin Vulgate, in turn borrowed or transliterated from Greek γένεσις, meaning
"origin"; Hebrew: , Bereʾšyt , "In [the] beginning"), is the first book of the Hebrew Bible (the Tanakh) and
the Christian Old Testament.[1]
The book describes its own structure around ten "toledot" sections (the "these are the generations of..." phrases), but
many modern commentators see it in terms of a "primeval history" (chapters 1-11) followed by the cycle of Patriarchal
stories (chapters 12-50).[2]
The basic narrative expresses the central theme: Godcreates the world and appoints man
as his regent, but man proves disobedient and God destroys his world through the Flood. The new post -Flood world
is equally corrupt, but God does not destroy it, instead calling one man, Abraham, to be the seed of its salvation. At
God's command Abraham descends from his home into the land of Canaan, given to him by God, where he dwells as
a sojourner, as does his son Isaac and his grandson Jacob. Jacob's name is changed to Israel, and through the
agency of his son Joseph, the children of Israel descend into Egypt, 70 people in all with their households, and God
promises them a future of greatness. Genesis ends with Israel in Egypt, ready for the coming of Moses and the
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Exodus. The narrative is punctuated by a series of covenants with God, successively narrowing in scope from all
mankind (the covenant with Noah) to a special relationship with one people alone (Abraham and his descendants
through Isaac and Jacob).[3]
Tradition credits Moses as the author of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, but the books are
in fact anonymous and look back on Moses as a figure from the distant past;[4]
some traditions contained in Genesis
are as old as the United Monarchy, but modern scholars increasingly see it as a product of the 6th and 5th centuries
BC.[5]
For Jews and Christians alike, the theological importance of Genesis centers on the covenants linking God to
his Chosen People and the people to the Promised Land. Christianity has interpreted Genesis as the prefiguration of
certain cardinal Christian beliefs, primarily the need for salvation (the hope or assurance of all Christians) and
the redemptive act of Christ on the Cross as thefulfillment of covenant promises as the Son of God.
Contents
[hide]
1 Contents
o 1.1 Structure
o 1.2 Summary
2 Composition
o 2.1 Origins
o 2.2 Genre
3 Themes
o 3.1 Promises to the ancestors
o 3.2 God's chosen people
4 See also
5 References
6 Bibliography
o 6.1 Commentaries on Genesis
o 6.2 General
7 External links
[edit]Contents
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First Day of Creation (from the 1493 Nuremberg Chronicle)
Bereishit , on Genesis 1-6: Creation, Eden, Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Lamech, wickedness
Noach , on Genesis 6- 11: Noah’s Ark, the Flood, Noah’s drunkenness, the Tower of Babel
Lech-Lecha , on Genesis 12-17: Abraham, Sarah, Lot, covenant, Hagar and Ishmael, circumcision
Vayeira , on Genesis 18-22: Abraham's visitors, Sodomites, Lot’s visitors and flight, Hagar expelled,
binding of Isaac
Chayei Sarah , on Genesis 23-25: Sarah buried, Rebekah for Isaac
Toledot , on Genesis 25- 28: Esau and Jacob, Esau's birthright, Isaac’s blessing
Vayetze , on Genesis 28- 32: Jacob flees, Rachel, Leah, Laban, Jacob’s c hildren and departure
Vayishlach , on Genesis 32- 36: Jacob’s reunion with Esau, the rape of Dinah
Vayeshev , on Genesis 37-40: Joseph's dreams, coat, and slavery, Judah with Tamar, Joseph and
Potiphar
Miketz , on Genesis 41- 44: Pharaoh’s dream, Joseph's in government, Joseph’s brothers visit Egypt
Vayigash , on Genesis 44-47: Joseph reveals himself, Jacob moves to Egypt
Vayechi , on Genesis 47- 50: Jacob’s blessings, death of Jacob and of Joseph
[edit]Structure
Genesis appears to be structured around the recurring phrase elleh toledot , meaning "these are the
generations." The first use of the phrase refers to the "generations of heaven and earth", and the remainder
mark individuals - Noah, the "sons of Noah", Shem, etc., down to Jacob.[6]
It is not clear, however, just what they
meant to the original authors, and most modern commentators divide i t into two parts based on subject matter, a
"primeval history" (chapters 1-11) and a "patriarchal history" (chapters 12-50).[7]
While the first is far shorter than
the second, it sets out the basic themes and provides an interpretive key for understanding the entire
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book.[8]
The "primeval history" has a symmetrical structure hinged around chapter 6 -9, the flood story, with the
events before the flood mirrored by the events after.[9]
The "patriarchal history" recounts the events of the major
patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to whom God reveals himself and to whom the promise of descendants
and land is made, while the story of Joseph serves to take the Israelites into Egypt in preparation for the next
book, Exodus.
[edit]Summary
God creates the world in six days and consecrates the seventh after giving mankind his first commandment: "be
fruitful and multiply". God pronounces the world "very good", but it becomes corrupted by the sin of man and
God sends a deluge (a great flood) to destroy it, saving only the righteous (Noah) and his family, from whose
seed the world is repopulated. Man sins again, but God has promised that he will not destroy the world a second
time with water.
God instructs Abram (the future Abraham) to travel from his home in Mesopotamia (modern Iraq) to the land
of Canaan. There God makes a covenant with Abram promising that his descendants shall be as numerous as
the stars in the heavens, but that they shall suffer oppression in a foreign land for four hundred years, after which
they shall inherit the land "from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates." Abram's name is
changed to Abraham and that of his wife Sarai to Sarah, and circumcision of all males is instituted as the sign of
the covenant.
Sarah is barren, and tells Abram to take her Egyptian handmaiden, Hagar, as a concubine. Through Hagar,
Abraham becomes the father of Ishmael. Abraham asks God that Ishmael "might live in Thy sight," (that is, be
favoured), but God replies that Sarah will bear a son, who will be named Isaac, through whom the covenant will
be established. At Sarah's insistence Ishmael and his mother Hagar are driven out into the wilderness, but God
saves them and promises to make Ishmael a great nation.
God resolves to destroy the city of Sodom for the sins of its people. Abraham protests that it is not just "to slay
the righteous with the wicked," and asks if the whole city can be spared if even ten righteous men are found
there. God replies: "For the sake of ten I will not destroy it." Abraham's nephew Lot is saved from the destruction
of Sodom, and through incest with his daughters becomes the ancestor of the Moabites and Ammonites.
God tests Abraham by demanding that he sacrifice Isaac. As Abraham is about to lay the knife upon his son,
God restrains him, promising him numberless descendants. On the death of Sarah, Abraham
purchases Machpelah (modern Hebron) for a family tomb and sends his servant to Mesopotamia to find among
his relations a wife for Isaac, and Rebekah is chosen. Other children are born to Abraham by another wife,
Keturah, among whose descendants are the Midianites, and he dies in a prosperous old age and is buried in his
tomb at Hebron.
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Isaac's wife Rebekah is barren, but Isaac prays to God and she gives birth to the twins Esau, father of
the Edomites, and Jacob. Through deception, Jacob becomes the heir instead of Esau and gains his father's
blessing. He flees to his uncle where he prospers and earns his two wives. Jacob's name is changed to Israel,
and by his wives Rachel and Leah and their handmaidens he has twelve sons, the ancestors of the twelve tribes
of the Children of Israel.
Joseph, Jacob's favourite son, is sold into slavery in Egypt by his jealous brothers. But Joseph prospers, and
when famine comes he brings his father and his brothers and their households, seventy persons in all, to Egypt,
where Pharaoh assigns to them the land of Goshen. Jacob calls his sons to his bedside and reveals their future
to them before he dies and is interred in the family tomb at Machpelah. Joseph lives to see his great-
grandchildren, and on his death-bed he exhorts his brethren, if God should remember them and lead them out of
the country, to take his bones with them. The book ends with Joseph's remains being "put in a coffin in Egypt."
[edit]Composition
Abram's Journey from Ur to Canaan (József Molnár, 1850)
[edit]Origins
For much of the 20th century most scholars agreed that the five books of the Pentateuch—
Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers andDeuteronomy—came from four sources, the Yahwist, the Elohist,
the Deuteronomist and the Priestly source, each telling the same basic story, and joined together by various
editors.[10] Since the 1970s there has been a revolution in scholarship: the Elohist source is now widely regarded
as no more than a variation on the Yahwist, while the Priestly source is increasingly seen not as a document but
as a body of revisions and expansions to the Yahwist (or "non-Priestly") material. (The Deuteronomistic source
does not appear in Genesis).[11]
In composing the Patriarchal history the Yahwist drew on four separate blocks of traditional stories about
Abraham, Jacob, Judah and Joseph, combining them with genealogies, itineraries and the "promise" theme to
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create a unified whole.[12]
Similarly, when composing the "primeval history" he drew on Greek and
Mesopotamian sources, editing and adding to them to create a unified work that fit his theological
agenda.[13]
The Yahwistic work was then revised and expanded into the final edition by the authors of the Priestly
source.[14]
This leaves the question of when these works were created. Scholars in the first half of the 20th century came to
the conclusion that the Yahwist was produced in the monarchic period, specifically at the court of Solomon, and
the Priestly work in the middle of the 5th century BC (the author was even identified as Ezra), but more recent
thinking is that the Yahwist was written either just before or during the Babylonian exile of the 6th century, and
the Priestly final edition was made late in the Exilic period or soon after.[5]
As for why the book was created, a theory which has gained considerable interest, although still controversial is
"Persian imperial authorisation". This proposes that the Persians, after their conquest of Babylon in 538 BC,
agreed to grant Jerusalem a large measure of local autonomy within the empire, but required the local
authorities to produce a single law code accepted by the entire community. The two powerful groups making up
the community—the priestly families who controlled the Temple and who traced their foundation-myth to Moses
and the wilderness wanderings, and the major landowning families who made up the "elders" and who traced
their own origins to Abraham, who had "given" them the land—were in conflict over many issues, and each had
its own "history of origins", but the Persian promise of greatly increased local autonomy for all provided a
powerful incentive to cooperate in producing a single text.[15]
[edit]Genre
Genesis is perhaps best seen as an example of "antiquarian history", a type of literature telling of the first
appearance of humans, the stories of ancestors and heroes, and the origins of culture, cities and so forth.[16]
The
most notable examples are found in the work of Greek historians of the 6th century BC: their intention was to
connect notable families of their own day to a distant and heroic past, and in doing so they did not distinguish
between myth, legend, and facts.[17]
Professor Jean-Louis Ska of the Pontifical Biblical Institute calls the basic
rule of the antiquarian historian the "law of conservation": everything old is valuable, nothing is eliminated.[18]
Ska
also points out the purpose behind such antiquarian histories: antiquity is needed to prove the worth of Israel's
traditions to the nations (the neighbours of the Jews in early Persian Palestine), and to reconcile and unite the
various factions within Israel itself.[18]
[edit]Themes
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Joseph recognized by his brothers (Léon Pierre Urbain Bourgeois, 1863)
[edit]Promises to the ancestors
In 1978 David Clines published his influential The Theme of the Pentateuch - influential because he was one of
the first to take up the question of the theme of the entire five books. Clines' conclusion was that the overall
theme is "the partial fulfillment - which implies also the partial nonfulfillment - of the promise to or blessing of the
Patriarchs." (By calling the fulfillment "partial" Clines was drawing attention to the fact that at the end of
Deuteronomy the people are still outside Canaan).[19]
The patriarchs, or ancestors, are Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, with their wives (Joseph is normally
excluded).[20]
Through the patriarchs God announces the election of Israel, meaning that he has chosen Israel to
be his special people and committed himself to their future.[21]
God tells the patriarchs that he will be faithful to
their descendants (i.e. to Israel), and Israel is expected to have faith in God and his promise. ("Faith" in the
context of Genesis and the Hebrew bible means agreement to the promissory relationship, not a body of
belief).[22]
The promise itself has three parts: offspring, blessings, and land.[23]
The fulfilment of the promise to each
patriarch depends on having a male heir, and the story is constantly complicated by the fact that each
prospective mother - Sarah, Rebekah and Rachel - is barren. The ancestors, however, retain their faith in God
and God in each case gives a son - in Jacob's case, twelve sons, the foundation of the chosen Israelites. All
three promises are more richly fulfilled in each succeeding generation, until through Joseph "all the world" is
saved from famine,[24]
and by bringing the children of Israel down to Egypt he becomes the means through which
the promise can be fulfilled.[20]
[edit]God's chosen people
Scholars generally agree that the theme of divine promise unites the patriarchal cycles, but many would dispute
the idea that a single theme (or theology) runs through Genesis - a theology of the Abraham cycle or the Jacob
cycle or the Joseph cycle might be possible, or a theology of the Yahwist or the Priestly source, but not a single
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theology or overarching theme for all of Genesis.[25]
The problem lies in finding a way to unite the patriarchal
theme of divine promise to the primeval history, with its theme of God's continuing mercy in the face of man's
sinful nature.[26]
One solution is to see the patriarchal stories as resulting from God's decision not to remain
alienated from mankind:[26]
God creates the world and mankind, mankind rebels, and God "elects" (chooses)
Abraham.[3]
To this basic plot (which comes from the Yahwist) the Priestly source has added a series of covenants dividing
history into stages, each with its own distinctive "sign". The first covenant is between God and all living
creatures, and is marked by the sign of the rainbow; the second is with the descendants of Abraham
(Ishmaelites and others as well as Israelites), and its sign iscircumcision; and the last, which doesn't appear until
the book of Exodus, is with Israel alone, and its sign is Sabbath. Each covenant is mediated by a great leader
(Noah, Abraham, Moses), and at each stage God progressively reveals himself by his name (Elohim with
Noah, El Shaddai with Abraham, Yahweh with Moses).[3]
(One of many Bible articles on the "Wielding the Sword of the Spirit" web site at www.matthewmcgee.org)Home Page * Copyright Policy * Feedback
The Basics of Understanding the Bible
Matthew McGee
In order to understand the Bible, one must study dispensationally, that is, rightly divide the scriptures (2 Timothy2:15). But what does it mean to study dispensationally or to rightly divide? On the most basic level: It is reading aBible passage and asking, "Am I in the group of people being spoken to here?" That is, "Is this passage speaking toChristians?" Most commonly, we are taught that the entire Bible is written to us. But that is not entirely correct. Thewhole Bible is written for us, for our learning, but not all of it is addressed to us.
For example: When God gave the law to the people of Israel through Moses in about 1500 BC, one of the laws wasto do no work on the Sabbath. The Sabbath lasts from sundown on Friday to sundown on Saturday. When a manwas found picking up sticks on the Sabbath in Numbers 15:32-36, God commanded the people of Israel to put him todeath by stoning. Now does that mean if we see our neighbor mowing his grass on Saturday morning that he iscommitting a sin? Should we round up the whole neighborhood and kill him? Of course not. We must realize that thechildren of Israel were not Christians. We are not under the law of Moses like they were then. They lived in adifferent dispensation from us.
The word "dispensation" comes from the word "dispense". So a dispensation is an administration (ordispensing) of God's will over a certain period of time to a certain group of people. In other words, adispensation is God's way of dealing with a group of people during a particular time period. To properly understand aBible passage, it is important to know both the time period to which it refers, and the group of people to which itapplies. This way, you can determine which dispensation applies to each Biblical passage.
God has had different rules for different groups of people in different time periods. Not only may the rules be different,but the punishment for not keeping the rules may be different. The way God interacts with man may be different.Sometimes even the environment man lives in may be different.
Here is an easy example that illustrates the point: Capital punishment.
1. When Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden, there was no capital punishment for murder. For that matterthere was no sin at all for which to be punished. On top of that, there was no death at all, since the fall of man had notyet happened. 2. A few years after Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden of Eden, Cain, their son, murderedhis brother, Abel (Genesis 4:8-15). But there was no capital punishment for Cain. God had not yet allowed it.
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Furthermore, God put a mark on Cain so that no one would kill him. 3. After the great flood, God instituted capitalpunishment for murder (Genesis 9:6). 4. And as just explained, when God instituted the law of Moses, capitalpunishment was administered for working on the Sabbath. Some other offenses would also result in death by stoning,such as the worship of idols, adultery, homosexual acts, and consulting spirit mediums (Leviticus 20).
In this simple example alone, we see four distinctly different sets of rules regarding capital punishment that applied indifferent dispensations.
Below is a summary of all of the dispensations:
Eternity Past - Even before God created the world, He always was, having no beginning or end.
1. Innocence - from the creation to the fall of man (the first sin) - Although the Bible does not say specifically, thisdispensation probably did not last very long, perhaps only a few days. It ended about 4000 BC. This dispensation iscovered in the scriptures from Genesis 1:1 to Genesis 3:22.
2. Conscience - from the fall of man to the great flood - This dispensation lasted from about 4000 BC to about 2350BC and is covered in the scriptures from Genesis 3:23 to Genesis 8:19. With very little instruction from God duringthis time, man acted according to his own conscience. The evil became so overwhelming, that this dispensationended when God destroyed all but Noah and his family in the great flood.
3. Human government - from the great flood to the call of Abraham - This dispensation began in about 2350 BC andis still in effect. Although Abraham and his descendants went under the dispensation of promise around 2000 BC, asexplained below, the remainder of mankind remained under the human government dispensation. It is covered in thescriptures from Genesis 8:20 to Genesis 11:32. God began allowing humans to govern themselves and to punishcriminals.
4. Promise - from the call of Abraham to the giving of the law to Moses for the children of Israel - This dispensationapplied only to Abraham and his descendants through his son, Isaac, and Isaac's son, Jacob (Israel). It lasted fromabout 2000 BC to about 1500 BC is covered in the scriptures from Genesis 12:1 to Exodus 19:7. God promisedAbraham that He would give land to Abraham's seed and that all the nations of the world would be blessed by hisseed. Although Israel went under the law described below around 1500 BC, the promise God made to Abraham isstill in effect.
5. Law - from the giving of the law to Moses for the children of Israel to the calling of Paul, the apostle of the Gentiles(those not of Israel) - This dispensation applied only to Jacob's descendants, Israel. It began about 1500 BC andlasted until it began to fade away about 37 AD and stopped in 70 AD. It will resume for seven years during the futuretribulation after the dispensation of grace listed below. It is covered in the scriptures from Exodus 19:8 to Acts 8 andfrom Hebrews to Revelation. The book of Acts is a book of transition from law to grace. During the period covered byActs 9 to 28, we see the grace dispensation coming in and the law dispensation fading away. God chose Israel as theapple of His eye. He gave Israel strict laws, harsh punishments, and prophecies of worldwide prominence in thefuture kingdom of their coming Messiah.
6. Grace - from the calling of Paul, the apostle of the Gentiles, to the rapture of the church - We are now in thisdispensation. It began in about 37 AD and will last until the future rapture. Hopefully it will be soon, but we do notknow when the rapture will occur, except that it will occur before the seven-year tribulation. This dispensation of graceis covered in the scriptures in Paul's letters from Romans to Philemon. When Israel refused to accept Jesus Christ,who had ascended to heaven, as their Messiah, God turned to the Gentiles to provoke Israel to jealousy (Romans
11:11).
7. Kingdom (or divine government) - from the return of Jesus Christ to the great white throne of judgment - Thisbegins at the end of the seven-year tribulation mentioned above and lasts for 1000 years. During this time, JesusChrist will reign as King in Jerusalem. This dispensation is covered in Revelation chapter 20. However, much moredetail on this dispensation may be found in many prophecies in various other parts of the Bible. I have summarizedmany of these in my article, "The Millennial Kingdom Reign of Jesus Christ".
Eternity Future - This dispensation begins at the end of the 1000 years mentioned above and lasts forever. It iscovered in the scriptures in Revelation chapters 21-22.
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Understanding the dispensations clears up all sorts of confusion. For example, many people cannot understand whoCain married. Obviously, he married one of his sisters, since there were no other women to marry. These peopleknow that today, a man should not marry a near relative, or perhaps they are aware that the law given to Moses forIsrael says not to marry near relatives. However, people often assume that this rule was always in effect. But inreality, Cain lived 2500 years before God instituted the statute against marrying a near relative. People who do notstudy dispensationally will find themselves mixing up the rules intended for different people in different dispensations.Thus, they have little chance of gaining a clear understanding of the scriptures and even God's will for their own life.
Notice that sometimes dispensational time periods can overlap one another, with two different dispensations applyingto two different groups of people. For example, the whole time that Israel was under the law (#5) dispensation, all ofthe Gentile nations were under the human government (#3) dispensation. A similar overlapping occurred from about37 AD until 70 AD. During this time the Jews in Israel were still under the law (Acts 21:20-21) which ended when the
Romans destroyed Jerusalem and the temple in 70 AD. But the Gentiles and Jews living outside of the land of Israelwere already under grace (#6), the dispensation committed to Paul (Ephesians 3:2), the apostle of the Gentiles(Romans 11:13).
Now at this point I should explain something that has been a great source of confusion for most Christians (includingmyself in the past). Paul says in 2 Timothy 2:8 "Remember that Jesus Christ of the seed of David was raised from the dead according to my gospel ...." How can Paul say that it is "my gospel"? Paul explained in Galatians 1:11-12that he did not learn the gospel that he preached from any man, but rather, was taught it "... by the revelation of Jesus Christ ." The ascended Lord Jesus Christ revealed the mystery of the gospel to Paul. The fact that it was a mysterymeans that no one knew it before. It had been a secret.
John the Baptist, Jesus, and the twelve apostles preached the gospel of the kingdom to the people of Israel only.This good news was that the kingdom, promised in the Old Testament by the prophets was ready to come in. Itrequired the repentance of the entire nation of Israel. Hence, the gospel message was, "Repent, for the kingdom of
heaven is at hand " (Matthew 3:2, 4:17, and 10:7). Even after the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ, theoffer of the kingdom was still valid and available to Israel. Peter offered the kingdom to Israel again in Acts 3:19-21 ifthey would only repent as a nation. But they would not. So the kingdom was postponed, and God called Paul andmade him "the minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles " (Romans 15:16) and "the apostle of the Gentiles"(Romans 11:13). That makes Paul "our apostle".
God gave Paul information that no one knew before. It was a new gospel, which Paul calls the gospel ofgrace or my gospel. The gospel of grace is that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, freely gave His life as the perfectsacrifice to pay for our sins. He was crucified, was buried, and rose from the dead on the third day (1Corinthians 15:1-4). Look at the early parts of Acts. You will never see the twelve apostles talking about Jesus
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Christ's redeeming blood or saying how He died for our sins. Oh, they mention His death and resurrection, but only asa great miracle to prove to Israel that He is alive and can return to be their King as the Old Testament prophesied.The twelve do not tell the Jews that Christ gave His life as a sacrifice, but rather, that they (the Jews)had murdered Him. The twelve never associate Christ's death with forgiveness of sins. The fact that His death andforgiveness are related was still a mystery at that point. But it was later revealed to Paul. "But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery , even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory: Which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory " (1
Corinthians 2:7-8). So, you see, God, knowing the future before He even created the world, had to keep the plan ofour redemption (our gospel) a secret (a mystery), and He did not reveal the secret until after He had called forth Paul.Also see also Romans 16:25.
So God had a "kingdom" program for the nation of Israel. It is described in great detail in Matthew, Mark, Luke, John,and the early chapters of Acts. After Israel refused to repent as a nation, God began His "grace" program for theGentiles (with some Jews included).
The following example will illustrate one of the key differences in the two programs:
Jesus, talking to people in His earthly ministry, said in Matthew 6:14-15, "For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses ." Notice that you will only be forgiven if you first forgive others.
But Paul tells us the opposite in Ephesians 4:32, "And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you ." If you are a believer, God has already forgiven you. Notof just some sins, but of all the sins we will ever commit (Colossians 2:13). Certainly, God wants Christians to forgiveothers, and we will receive rewards in heaven according to our works (1 Corinthians 3:10-15). But our salvation doesnot depend on the works at all (Romans 4:5).
Paul was not contradicting Jesus. After all, Paul received his message from our risen and ascended Lord JesusChrist, Himself. Their messages are not contradictory because they were to different audiences in differentdispensations. If a man tells his son to empty the garbage and his daughter to vacuum the floor, he is notcontradicting himself. Jesus Christ, in his earthly ministry, was teaching Jews who were under the law of Moses. Butlater, Jesus Christ (through Paul) was teaching Christians (mostly non-Jew) who were not under the law of Moses,but under grace. We are still in the dispensation of grace today, which will continue until the rapture of the church. Soour salvation comes by believing the gospel of grace that our Lord Jesus Christ revealed to our Apostle Paul.
I realize that this is a lot to consider, so I welcome questions. To study this further, see the articles below whichfurther explain the differences between the kingdom program and the grace program:
Israel's Kingdom Gospel and Our Grace Gospel Elements of the Gospel and Our Ascended Lord The Seven Churches of Revelation
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